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Pet Blood Bank UK is billed as the first service to offer vets a nationwide supply of blood to treat small animals.

It means veterinary practices can buy a readily available stock instead of relying, at short notice in emergencies, on a donor pets register.

The not-for-profit charity is launching with a service just for dogs, but other animals could soon benefit – there are plans to offer a similar scheme for cats.

Pet Blood Bank UK executive director Wendy Barnett said: “One donation can help as many as four dogs and virtually all larger types of dog can donate.

“Dogs across the country will have access to the products through their veterinary practices. This marks a significant advancement in veterinary care.”

The bank, based in Loughborough, Leicestershire, will collect blood from volunteer dogs.

The donations will then be turned into various products – including whole blood, packed red blood cells and frozen plasma – for both emergency and pre-planned transfusions.

Previously, a donor dog had to be available when the blood was required for a transfusion to take place.

But legislation introduced in October 2005 made it possible to apply for licensing to bank pet blood products.

The law change prompted Vets Now, an emergency and critical care veterinary provider, to back the setting up of a national resource.

Vets Now managing director Richard Dixon said: “Vets Now is delighted to support the UK’s first national pet blood bank. This initiative will help the profession transform the future of transfusion medicine for small animals.”

Traditionally, vets needing to perform transfusions relied on suitable donor dogs being available in their clinic for them to bleed.

From mid-March, owners of dogs weighing more than 25kg and aged between one and eight years old will be asked to volunteer their pet for donations in a series of blood drives.

The launch of the blood bank comes after a pilot project in Gateshead, which provided a local service for animals in the area.

Maddi, a five-year-old black Labrador, received a successful transfusion from the clinic in August after being admitted suffering from haemorrhagic vomiting and diarrhoea.

The dog’s owner, Helen Maddison, said: “After seeing the transformation the transfusion gave Maddi, I’m a great advocate of pet blood banks.

“Maddi was terribly ill and had gone downhill so rapidly we thought we were going to lose her. The transfusion saved her and she is back to her normal self now.”